"He has gone back to work for Mr. Van Dieman, sir. His hands was all over black paint, and I see him a-wipin' of 'em onto your white picket fence." The calmness of despair came over me. I saw it, now. I had been called out of bed to help catch my own pig. For nearly half an hour I had dodged about there in front of my own house, too stupid to suspect, too stupid even to recognize my own pig in the disguised and capricious porker shying and caracolling about in the moonlight. Good heavens! Van Dieman was right. A man who helps to steal his own pig is fit for nothing but Paris or a sanitarium. "Shave me speedily, Higgins," I said. "I am not very well, and it is difficult for me to preserve sufficient composure to sit still. And, Higgins, it is not at all necessary for you to refer to that pig hereafter. You understand? Very well. Go to the telephone and call up the Cunard office." [Pg 10] [Pg 10] Presently I was in communication with Bowling Green. That morning in the breakfast-room, when I had kissed my daughter Alida, aged eighteen, and my daughter Dulcima, aged nineteen, the younger said: "Papa, do you know that our pig has been stolen?" "Alida," I replied, "I myself disposed of him"—which was the dreadful truth. "You sold him?" asked Dulcima in surprise. "N—not exactly. These grape-fruit are too sour!" "You gave him away?" inquired Alida. "Yes—after a fashion. Is this the same coffee we have been using? It has a peculiar——" "Who did you give him to?" persisted my younger child. "A—man." "What man?" "Nobody you know, child."
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